Changes have been made to this course following feedback from educators and learners:

• Reduced the marks for the practical activity course assessment task from 65 to 55 marks, scaling is still 45 marks.
• Reduced the marks for section 2: choreography review from 30 to 20 marks.
• Introduced a maximum word count of 1,500 words and a penalty for exceeding this by more than 10%.

We’ve amended the practical activity details in the course specification. Please ensure learners have the updated assessment task and know to submit their wordcount for the choreography review. Please update your teaching notes and assessments, for example prelims, to reflect the changes.

New centres

Centres need to apply for approval before delivering the qualification for the first time and must consider the resources that are available to them to do this.

In order to deliver this qualification in the next academic session, and for candidates to be certificated in August the following year, centres must apply for approval by the end of September of the previous year.

Centre already approved

It is your centre’s responsibility to ensure that you have the staff, reference materials, learning materials, assessment materials, equipment and accommodation needed to deliver, assess and internally verify any qualifications you deliver.

Centre’s must review resources regularly to ensure that they remain relevant, current and available in quantities appropriate to the qualification requirements and candidate numbers. This is an exercise that all centres should conduct annually before providing candidates with their subject choices. Appropriately qualified staff are required to deliver Dance qualifications to ensure that teaching and learning is of an appropriate standard and that the candidates are suitably prepared for the course assessments, resulting in a positive learning experience.

You must not continue to deliver a qualification if there are any changes in your staffing, resources, equipment or accommodation which would mean you will now not meet the minimum SQA requirements for approval.

Subject-specific requirements for the course

When applying for approval, centres must demonstrate that teachers and lecturers delivering/assessing Dance have completed at least two years' successful study of dance to a minimum of Higher National Diploma (HND) level (SCQF level 8) or have extensive knowledge in dance, which can be supported by vocational and teaching qualifications through accredited dance awarding bodies with a minimum value of 40 SCQF credit points at level 7 and 40 SCQF points at level 8. It is vital that any vocational qualifications or awards achieved are appropriate for course delivery of all three components within the National Qualifications. It would also be beneficial if teaching staff have or are working towards GTC registration in Dance.  For private Dance centre’s applying for approval, it would also be favourable if staff have or are working towards SQA assessor qualifications. 

Find out about our approval process.